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Wednesday, 25 July 2018

CRAFT: How to make Pom Pom Ice Cream Bunting for less than £3

I can't believe Isabella and Poppy's birthday was already so long ago, but summer is finally here and this Pom Pom Ice-Cream bunting is perfect for putting up at garden parties or as a summery addition to children's bedrooms. Since receiving a pack of pom pom makers at Christmas I have really enjoyed making a variety of pom pom related things, such as these hair accessories. Unless you've made pom poms before you won't believe quite how quick and easy they are to make; we're talking minutes and that's with an eager child trying to help. So when it came to planning the girl's joint birthday party I knew I had to make something ice-cream related.

Is there anything that says 'summer' more than ice-cream? You could make these ice-creams using wool inspired by your favourite ice-cream flavours, but to keep things simple I picked up mint green, strawberry pink and vanilla cream. The wool was from Poundland and they were £2 for all 3; making this bunting very affordable to make. You could use any wool you have though, as long as it isn't too thick because it will change the way the pom poms look.

What you'll need:

3 different colours of wool

Scissors

Cream card

Glue gun

Pom Pom Maker (mine is from eBay)

What to do:

1) To find out how to make the pom poms head over to this blog post, as there is a step-by-step guide.

2) Depending on how long you want your bunting will depend on how many ice-creams you'll need to make. My bunting was around 1.5m long and I had five ice-creams, just for reference. Once you have enough pom poms of each colour to make the number of ice-creams you need (in my case - 5x pink, 5x cream and 5x green) you can start putting them together.

3) Pick up two pom poms in different colours and using the two longer pieces tie them together tightly. I double or even triple knotted them to make sure they were secure.

4) You will be left with four longer pieces of string (two from each pom pom). Cut off one of these longer string from each pom pom, so that you are left with two.

5) Pick up a pom pom in the third colour and place it on top of the two already tied together. Using the two longer pieces you left from the duo pom poms tie the third one on securely. You shouldn't be able to see the string because once it is pulled tight it is buried within the pom pom, if that makes sense?

6) Cut those two longer bits of string that you've just used to tie the top pom pom short, so that they blend in with the pom pom. You should now be left with only two longer pieces from the top pom pom. These can be used to tie the ice-cream to a long length of string later.

7) To make the cone cut out just less than a quarter of a circle shape from yellow or cream card. Using the glue gun carefully curl the card round to make a cone shape and fix together with glue.

8) Then place a thin ring of glue gun glue around the very top inside of the cone. Press the ice-cream pom poms gently into the top of the cone and hold for a few seconds or until the glue has set them in place.

9) There you have your pom pom ice-creams! The last thing to do is to repeat that process with all of the ice-creams and then tie them to a longer piece of string. I just used some of a lighter pink wool I had, but you could use string instead.